ATHABASCA – Athabasca RCMP has continued to see a decrease in the crimes they prioritized this quarter.
Staff Sgt. Mark Hall presented the RCMP’s first quarter report on Aug. 12 at the town council meeting. Hall explained to the councillors that there were some key areas on the downslide.
“We are seeing some key areas that are on the downward trends, which is really a good sign for us. A 66 per cent decrease in the amount of break and enters year over year, a 28 per cent reduction in vehicle theft, and theft under were down 21 per cent,” Hall said. “We are seeing that trend in a lot of these different areas, which is key to making us successful as the detachment here.”
Hall also touched on the top calls the detachment has been dealing with for the three months. Listed at number one was well-being checks with 36 calls. Most of the files the RCMP has been dealing with have not been criminal, which Hall said, is a very good sign about the work being done in the community.
Some priorities the RCMP were focusing on in this first quarter were property crimes, drugs, and habitual offenders. Last quarter, property crimes were at 32 percent and right now they are down to five percent. The drug side of things has been slower as the RCMP only has one arrest and three files related to drug trafficking. Hall said that out of 12 habitual offenders, six have re-offended.
“There ended up being 27 new files and 28 charges on those individuals. There's a couple of them not at large, a couple of them are in jail right now waiting, but majority of them do get released. Really just depends on the type of crimes they’re committing to,” Hall said
Hall also mentioned that the detachment wants to be involved in the community as much as they can moving forward.
“We are doing as many things as we possibly can. When school starts again, we plan on being back in the schools as much as possible,” Hall said. “The schools seem to like the time we spend there.
